Aristotle
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) is a Greek philosopher from Antiquity. Student of Plato and the Academy, he is numbered among the greatest philosophers in history. His influence extends to direct successors in Late Antiquity to academics in the present day. All areas of philosophy benefitted from Aristotle's writings, from logic, in his Analytics, aesthetics, in his Poetics, ethics, in his Nicomachean Ethics, politics, in his Politics, metaphysics, in his Metaphysics, and rhetoric, in his Rhetoric. From the names alone, one might see that some of the seminal works of many of philosophy's subfields are attributed to Aristotle. The scope of his research increases the difficulty of a total exposition of Aristotelian philosophy. However, his consistency is enough to permit serious appropriation of his texts as a whole. This task is an enormous but worthwhile effort for the lubrication of future studies of Western philosophy. Division of Philosophy Science (epistême) and Art (techne) are the highest categorizations of rational human activity in Aristotelian philosophy. The one is an investigation of truth in practical or theoretical senses, i.e. for living and contemplation. The other is a productive craft that creates, as in medicine, engineering, or poetry, such as health, technology and verse respectively. The division of philosophy into sciences and crafts by Aristotle is as follows: #''Theoretical sciences ''- astronomy, biology, botany, mathematics, metaphysics, physics, etc. #''Practical sciences'' - economics, ethics, politics #''Productive crafts'' - agriculture, engineering, medicine, music, painting, pottery, rhetoric, etc. Beyond the arts and sciences is the study of Logic. Reasoning was the domain of philosophers and intellectuals before Aristotle's era but no one prior to Aristotle organized principles of validity and soundness into a system of reason. His contribution to logic prompted Kant to say of Aristotle: "''That from the earliest times logic has traveled a secure course can be seen from the fact that since the time of Aristotle it has not had to go a single step backwards...What is further remarkable about logic is that until now it has also been unable to take a single step forward, and therefore seems to all appearance to be finished and complete''" (Critique of Pure Reason B vii) Logicians' esteem for Aristotle has not wavered even though modern logic has developed new principles from the likes of Bertrand Russell or Gottlob Frege in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the Aristotelian Corpus, logic is prior to other philosophy. Reasoning - whether scientific or dialectical - cannot ignore logical principles. Thus it is vital to establish a system of reason before properly engaging in either dialectic or science, or else those efforts will be journeys into the dark without a light. Methodology Ascribing a single process of reasoning to an intellectual as prolific as Aristotle is difficult. However, despite the flexibility of his approaches, Aristotle invigorated many of his greatest works - like the Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics - by a particular combination of methods: #Exposing what appears to be the case (Phainomena) #Consulting reasonable opinions (Endoxa) By starting from the apparent facts of the matter and popular, educated opinion, Aristotle's philosophy has an intuitive appeal and is a long way from the high-flung metaphysics of many of his successors. Of course, his time period had poor physical, chemical and biological knowledge so a number of misunderstood or illusory phainomena are mentioned and one can only imagine how his works would have been different if given modern observations. The logical consequences of accepting certain endoxa and phainomena together are often investigated by Aristotle, rendering many popular views obsolete or revealing their absurdity, as the Metaphysics does to Platonic idealism. Aristotle spends the bulk of his books elaborating original theories grounded in the appearent facts and informed opinions. In large part, these elaborations make what is implicit in the latter into an explicit philosophy. Organon of Logic The series of texts classified as the Organon grounds the remainder of texts attributed to Aristotle. They constitute his works on a demonstrative science precedent to the theoretical and practical sciences. The system revealed in the Organon is the tool of Aristotle`s philosophy as a provision of principles for his philosophy. Today, its principles are known together as Aristotelian Logic '''or '''Syllogistic Logic. The fundamentals of Aristotelian logic is to ascribe metaphysical significance to linguistic structure, i.e. to identify real relations in the grammatical subject-predicate relationship. The Organon`s first text, the Categories, organizes the components that are related in statements into the four combinations of 'presence in` and 'predication of' that are also demonstrable in a tenfold system of categories. References *Lawson-Tancred, Hugh (translation). 1998. Aristotle. Metaphysics. Penguin Books: London *Mckeon, Richard (edited). 1941. The Basic Works of Aristotle. The Modern Library: New York Corpus Aristotelicum *'Organon' **''Categories (''Cat.) **''De Interpretatione (''DI) **''Prior Analytics (''APr) **''Posterior Analytics (''APo) **''Topics (''Top.) **''Sophistical Refutations (''SE) *'Theoretical Sciences' **''Metaphysics (''Met.) **''De Anima'' (DA) **''De Caelo'' (DC) **''Physics (''Phys.) *'Practical Sciences' **''Nicomachean Ethics'' (EN) **''Eudemian Ethics'' (EE) **''Great Ethics'' (MM) **''On Virtues and Vices'' (VV) **''Politics'' (Pol.) *'Productive Crafts' **''Rhetoric'' (Rhe.) **''Poetics'' (Poe.) Category:Philosophers